


The Blood that Ties

by space_squirrel



Series: Warrior Daughter [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Pre-Mass Effect 1, Spacer (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 08:05:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11054796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_squirrel/pseuds/space_squirrel
Summary: Sophie Shepard never intended to join the Alliance, despite the fact she's a born-and-raised military brat, daughter of Rear Admiral Robin Shepard and Commander Hannah Shepard, a product of a nomadic childhood spent among the stars.But one devastating event is about to change everything.





	The Blood that Ties

_One, two! One, two! And through and through_  
_The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!_  
_He left it dead, and with its head_  
_He went galumphing back._  
  
                           -Lewis Carroll, "The Jabberwocky"

* * *

 

Sophie Shepard is walking down her high school’s empty hallway, lost in thought as she approaches her assigned self-study room. She's looking forward to her spare period more so than usual: she could use a break from the monotony of her classes, could use a distraction from her life's personal problems, like the aching, looming presence of a father whose entire squad is missing in action. 

She still remembers the vidcall from her mother - that was an unusual occurrence, in and of itself - with perfect clarity. Remembers Hannah Shepard’s glassy eyes, the brief catch in her voice as she delivered the news. Sophie had offered to come home to Vancouver, to keep her company, but the senior Shepard had told her it wasn’t necessary, she wasn’t leaving her tour, not yet. 

“There’s nothing we can do about it, anyhow,” she’d said. 

That didn’t make the pain sting any less, especially as time ticked on with no news, drawing closer and closer to her 18th birthday - one Robin Shepard had promised, _promised_ her he wouldn’t miss, not this time. 

Robin and Sophie have never been close, what with his frequent deployment schedule during her youth, but whatever progress they’d made with their relationship over the years was squashed the second she’d been caught pants down - literally - with Private Austin Jones, a 20-year old marine with sun kissed skin and shortly cropped brown hair. 

She has no idea where Austin is these days - not that she really cares, she tries to tell herself - but in an attempt to bury the fact that a newly minted Alliance Private was sleeping with his Captain's then-16-year-old daughter - and on his _ship_ , no less - he'd been immediately and dishonourably discharged; some excuse made up as to why. Austin had stoically agreed to keep quiet, as long as her father didn't press charges. Meanwhile, Sophie had been shipped off to her Aunt's place on Earth post-haste, all contact with Austin cut off. 

Her relationship with The Captain had never been the same, not after that, and she’s terrified she’ll never get a chance to remedy it, that his MIA will turn into a KIA, or worse, that it will _stay_ that way, a forever question mark as to Robin’s whereabouts looming over her family’s name. 

As she steps into the cafeteria, she has to look around the room to find her classmates, who are not at their usual table but instead, huddled in the corner of the room by a window - likely to get a better vid connection, thanks to the building's ancient concrete walls. 

The room is oddly quiet, her footsteps echoing eerily as she makes her way over to the group that's crowded around Cameron Parker's omnitool, absentmindedly wondering what ridiculous vid they're watching today. 

She hoped it was another Elcor Eats video; the alien’s dismal reviews of human food were always hilarious; and god knows she could use a laugh these days. 

Sophie approaches the edge of the table, and is about to speak when a strangled cry draws her attention. 

Jenny Cairn is staring at the screen, wide-eyed and ghastly pale, a perfectly manicured hand flying to her mouth as she gasps. 

"Oh god, they're really going to do it, aren't they?" she cries, turning and burying her face into the shoulder of the boy next to her - was his name Tom? - as her body begins to shake with sobs. 

"Fucking batarians," Tom spits, wrapping his arm around the petite redhead. "This is why you can't trust aliens." 

It's then that Cam notices her approach, flicking his eyes up from the screen long enough to catch her wide-eyed expression. 

"They found that missing Alliance unit," he says, by way of an explanation,  and she feels the colour drain from her face. "They're all dead, slaughtered by these fuckers, except the admiral. They've got him captured, those sick fucks. Here." 

He tilts his arm slightly, allowing her access to the live vid on the screen. 

A wave of nausea instantly crashes over her, the floor suddenly swaying beneath her feet. 

There, in the centre of the screen, sits a bloodied and bruised man in a filthy Alliance uniform, face swollen to an almost unrecognizable level. Thick leather restraints bite into his wrists as he stares straight ahead, his blue eyes focusing just above the camera - eyes Sophie would recognize anywhere. 

Her entire body feels fifty times heavier, legs lead, like she might sink straight into the ground and be swallowed whole any minute as she stands there, frozen in place. 

The batarian is speaking quickly in an unfamiliar language, Cam's omnitool translating as he spews his hateful rhetoric, but Sophie can't catch the words, can't breathe as she watches the alien pull a sharp blade from his belt and press it into the side of the admiral's neck, right against his carotid artery. 

She desperately wants to look away, needs to look away, but is unable to do anything but stare as time slows to a crawl. Tears prick at her eyes, bile rising in her throat as she realizes they are about to watch her father's slaughter on live TV. 

Sophie forces herself to swallow, hard, as the batarian swiftly pushes the blade forward and down, straight through the artery and across his vocal cords, before pulling the blade the rest of the way across the dirt-streaked skin of Rear Admiral Robin Shepard's throat. 

Her classmates gasp. 

A gurgling sound fills the room, followed by shallow gasping. 

Blood is everywhere, Robin’s head is rolled back, eyes fluttering as his body twitches, then stills. 

Sophie’s skin is tingling, as if some force, some strange power is building beneath her skin, crawling up her spine, and the entire room spins sideways as she swallows down vomit, grasping for the desk as she struggles to keep her body upright. 

The batarian whoops triumphantly, licking the blade as he grins at the camera, red blood smearing across his teeth. 

That act is Sophie's undoing, and she cries out, sobbing uncontrollably as she collapses to the floor, the tingling sensation turning into pins and needles and blooming into a fire that radiates from her spine straight up into her brain, and she struggles to catch her breath. 

The last thing Sophie remembers is the room exploding into a into a brilliant blue light, chairs and papers flying as her peers run for cover, their screams ringing off the walls.  

 

* * *

 

When Sophie wakes, she’s feeling groggy and disoriented, a painful throbbing in her head. She forces her eyes open and tries to sit up, but her Aunt Jessica is there in a heartbeat, handing her a glass of water and pressing her back down to the bed. 

She gulps the water down greedily, and hands the glass back to her aunt. She’s trying to focus on what the doctor is saying, something about eezo exposure and biotic manifestation, an “unusual amount of raw power for a human”, he says, and then something about an amp she’ll have to be fitted for, once she lands in Vancouver. 

She’s only half listing, woozy and shaking, but understands the bare bones of what she’s being told: she’s a biotic, and her heart drops as the realization of what that means sinks in. She’ll never have that normal life she hoped for, dreamed of when she moved to Earth. 

Sophie is about to ask the doctor what happened, what caused her sudden biotic incident, _why now,_ how long she’s been out for, when she suddenly notices her aunt’s puffy, red-rimmed eyes and instantly feels her stomach roll and her lungs tighten as she remembers. 

Remembers four eyes, uniformly dark, staring straight at her. Remembers yellow-green skin, covered with short,fine hairs, a face contorted in what can only be described as a sneer, a deep guttural voice speaking in an unfamiliar language. Red. So much red, _blood_ red, her father's blood, spilling everywhere, everywhere as he-- 

Her hand flies to her mouth in a sob. Her heart is racing, and the room is spinning. Her arms are tingling and she struggles to take a breath, her chest heavy and tight. Pain is radiating through her body, but her veins feel like ice. She wants to run, to escape this room where there four walls are closing in on her and the air is suffocating, but she can’t catch her breath, can’t _breathe_ , and she starts to panic, her vision becoming spotty as the room spins faster and faster and-- 

Suddenly, a nurse is at her side, oxygen flowing into her lungs as a mask is slipped over her face, her aunt rubbing her back soothingly and urging her to breathe in tandem. 

“That’s it, Sophie. Take a big breath in... two, three, four; and out... two, three, four.” 

Minutes pass, but it feels like a lifetime as she struggles to regain control of her body, of her mind. 

She doesn’t have to ask if her father is dead, though her aunt delivers the news to her gently, anyway, leaving out the gory details, and tells her there’s an Alliance shuttle waiting to fly them to Vancouver, where her mother is docked. 

She doesn’t tell her that she _knows_ he’s dead, because she watched it happen, choosing to stare out the window in silence as her aunt gathers her things, a duffel already hastily packed, and guides her to the waiting shuttle. 

She doesn’t tell her that she can’t think of _anything_ else, can’t erase the image of her father’s throat being slit, of the batarian tasting his blood as his life fades away. Instead, she sits stoically, the shuttle’s ambient noise filling her ears, the only other sound the occasional sniffle from her aunt, who tries to mask her tears with her sleeve. 

She doesn’t tell her that her panic, her dread, is slowly being replaced by something much darker, an emotion much easier to handle than the pain she felt upon waking; a hatred for batarians growing and festering inside her like a disease. 

She doesn’t tell her mother, when she sees her, that she feels numb, dead inside, certain that anything she _could_ have felt other than that seeded hatred faded away the minute she watched her father be executed - _murdered -_ in cold blood. 

She doesn’t tell her that everything she’s been working towards, her plans to go to college, to create a normal, civilian life for herself seem so far out of reach now, like a balloon dancing in the wind, floating farther and farther away with each passing moment. 

And she doesn’t tell her mother where she’s going when she walks out the door of their apartment dressed in ripped jeans and her father’s favourite leather jacket two weeks later, on her 18th birthday; heading straight to the local Alliance recruitment office, where she signs her life over to them in one fluid stroke.


End file.
